Bashar al-Assad (Arabic: بشار حافظ الأسد‎, Baššār al-ʾAsad; born 11 September 1965) is the President of Syria and Regional Secretary of the Ba'ath Party. His father Hafez al-Assad ruled Syria for 29 years until his death in 2000. Al-Assad was elected in 2000, re-elected in 2007, unopposed each time

Israeli defense experts were still sounding alarms this week over Google Earth images made public Friday by the Israeli daily Haaretz. The satellite photos, taken March 22, show Scud missiles ready for deployment at a Syrian base at Adra, where earlier reports suggest Syria is training Hezbollah militants in the use of missiles that threaten large parts of Israel.

Google earth mapThe photos show five 11-meter-long Scuds at the Adra base. Three are on trucks in a car park. Two others are in a training area where 20 to 25 people can be made out along with about 20 vehicles. One of the two missiles appears to be mounted on a mobile launcher; another is on the ground.

Earlier reports have suggested that the Adra base, located in a deep valley surrounded by 400-meter mountains, has concrete tunnels leading deep underground where the missiles are apparently stored in protected silos.

In 2006, Hezbollah rocket fire into Israel precipitated Israeli air strikes and a ground invasion of Lebanon. Hezbollah’s month-long barrage of rockets deeply unsettled Israel; with Scud missiles, Hezbollah can strike all the major cities in Israel.

In April, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai reported that Syrian President Bashar Assad was arming Hezbollah with Scuds, a report Assad denied but both the U.S. and Israel later confirmed. Hezbollah sources told Al Rai that the group had the capability to launch 15 tons of explosives at Israel every day in the case of another war between the two sides, and went on to claim that Hezbollah possesses a wide range of missiles with a heavy payload, including the 1-ton Zilzal missile and half-ton Fateh 110 and M600 missiles.

In May, the Sunday Times reported that shipments of weapons from the Adra base were going to Hezbollah, and that Iran was sending missiles and other weapons to that base via Damascus airport nearby. The paper also said Hezbollah had been given a section of the base for barracks, warehouses and a fleet of trucks to transport weapons to the Lebanese border, which is just 25 miles away.

Assad has entered a close strategic partnership with Iran, Hezbollah’s primary political and financial master. According to the Pentagon, Hezbollah receives up to $200 million from Iran each year, in addition to arms.

Jeffrey White, former head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency’s Office for Middle East/Africa Regional Military Assessments and now defense fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said last month that Hezbollah is “preparing for war.”

“It has built up its rocket and missile forces and air defenses, and now has four times as many rockets and more accurate missiles than in 2006,” White said.

The Google Earth photos also show extensive construction at military bases throughout Syria.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs in June, Danielle Pletka, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said “Hezbollah is effectively a state within a state in Lebanon, with an ever growing and ever more sophisticated long-range arsenal. It is untrammeled by the Lebanese government to which it belongs and answerable to no one in that nation, but rather to the dictatorships in Damascus and Tehran.”

Energetic efforts by the Obama administration to engage Syria and pry Assad away from his relationship with Tehran have so far proved fruitless. In an interview in The Wall Street Journal in September, published as he was meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem downplayed the prospects of renewed talks with Israel and voiced opposition to many of Washington’s regional initiatives.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is currently visiting Lebanon.On his itinerary: a visit to the Lebanon-Israel border so he can throw stones at Israeli soldiers. AOL

Location: Palmyra, Syria Honor Human Rights: No Inmate Population: 4500Torture, hangings, beatings, axe chopping are an everyday occurrence at this unforgiven place. The year 1980, marked the gloomy event when Rifa’at Asad military shot down all 500 inmates in the prison the worst prison massacre the world has seen to date. Guards are given almost limitless power in what they can do to prisoners and death can be the ultimate price for traitors of this land. Guards are often known to beat their inmates enough just before they go unconscious then drag their bodies on the ground until they died.

Tadmor Military Prison is considered one of the most oppressive prisons in the world, with Amnesty International stating that every aspect of it was designed to dehumanize its inhabitants. “The level of brutality endured by prisoners in this prison is shocking,” added the human rights organization. But Tadmor became even more notorious in June 1980, when President Hafez al-Assad reportedly ordered soldiers to “kill every prisoner in sight” in retaliation for an attack on his life made by the Muslim Brotherhood the day before.

The jail housed hundreds of supporters of the Muslin Brotherhood, and some say as many as 800 inmates were indiscriminately killed in the attack – with other estimates suggesting the number could be as high as 2,400. The clean-up following the massacre reportedly took two weeks.

When Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father as President of Syria in 2001, Tadmor Prison was closed and some prisoners were granted amnesty. Optimistically, a lot of people probably thought that times were changing. However, in 2011, Tadmor was reopened to once again house opponents of the Assad regime involved with Syria’s Arab Spring uprising. Bashar’s reign has been described as no less brutal than his father’s. “The entire country really is Tadmor now,” said author and ex-Tadmor prisoner Dr. Bara Sarraj, ominously describing the situation in Syria.

The government imposed a total blackout on Sednaya after prison authorities and military police used firearms to quell a riot on July 5, 2008. The prison holds at least 1,500 inmates and possibly as many as 2,500.

In July 2009, the authorities finally allowed some families to visit relatives in the prison, but have maintained a ban on visits to others and on information about other detainees. The actual number of Sednaya detainees who remain completely isolated from the outside world is believed to be much higher than the 42 whose names Human Rights Watch has obtained.

“The Syrian government needs to come clean on what happened in Sednaya a year and a half ago,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Syrian authorities should end the anguish of the prisoners’ families and allow visits to all detainees.”

Some of the 42 detainees on the list who remain incommunicado have finished serving their sentences and should have been released. Others were on trial, but their trials have been delayed without explanation. One of those who should have been released is Nizar Rastanawi, a prominent human rights activist whom the state security court had sentenced to a four-year term on charges of "spreading false news" and "insulting the President of the Republic" after a member of the security services testified that he overheard a private conversation Rastanawi was having with another person. Rastanawi’s sentence ended on April 18, but the government has not released him or provided any information about him.

A detainee’s parents described to Human Rights Watch the difficulties they faced trying to get information:

We went to the prison [Sednaya] and registered our name with the prison guards. We waited there, with a baby, from 8 a.m. until 12 p.m. We had to pay 2,000 Syrian pounds [$44 US] as a bribe just to register our visit request. Then the prison guards told us that our son has no right for a visit and they asked us to go see the Political Security branch in Damascus. They would not even tell us if our son was still in Sednaya or whether he was alive. To date, we are still waiting for an answer.

For the families allowed to see their detained relatives, visiting conditions are very difficult. Two families told Human Rights Watch that visits are limited to 30 minutes once a month, with a security guard standing between the prisoner and his family – who remain behind a set of metal bars. Visits are restricted to the immediate family.

Detainees released from Sednaya since July who have been contacted by Human Rights Watch or Syrian human rights activists have been afraid to discuss what happened or to provide information about other detainees. When asked about the fate of some friends who were detained with him, one released detainee told a Syrian human rights activist, “Please don’t ask me – we don’t want to go back to prison.”

To date, the government has not provided the families of detainees or the public with any information regarding the July 2008 events at Sednaya or the names of those injured or killed.

“The secrecy and fear surrounding the fate of detainees in Sednaya is a reminder of Syria’s cruel treatment of prisoners and their families alike,” Stork said.

International human rights law – including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Syria has ratified – prohibits arbitrary detention, which includes holding persons beyond the expiration of their sentence, and requires compensation for anyone who has been arbitrarily detained. The UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners require that prisoners be able to communicate with the outside world at “regular intervals.” These UN rules also allow the use of force only when absolutely necessary and require notification of relatives immediately after a prisoner’s death.

Satellite imagery of the al-Safira military facility in Syria. The al-Safira military base is the headquarters of the Syrian chemical weapons program and contains both a depot for storing chemical weapons as well as a massive laboratory for manufacturing them